


Grail War

by Cywolf



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU, F/M, Fantasy, loosely based on fate/stay night
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26070151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cywolf/pseuds/Cywolf
Summary: When a Summoning goes wrong, Hyuuga Neji is forced to represent the Hyuuga clan as their representative in the Grail War, with an Archer-class Servant by his side.(No prior knowledge of the fate/stay night series needed. Just wanted to write a swords-and-sorcery AU, and this was the result. Originally posted Sept. 26, 2006.)
Relationships: Hyuuga Neji/Tenten, others may follow
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Grail War

Hyuuga Neji had been kneeling in the same painful position for an hour, his limbs stilled and his spine straight in an uncomfortable ritual stance, but he paid it as little thought as he did to his breathing. His silver eyes were focused on his cousin kneeling in the center of a thrice-ringed pentagram, the arcane symbols inscribed along the circumferences beginning to glow subtly with eldritch light; his ears were filled with the quiet sound of her chanting. The rest of the world was as nothing.

His uncle knelt at the other side of the outermost circle, exactly opposite Neji. Hanabi knelt in the space between them, in the central pentagon of the five-pointed star, so that the three of them formed a straight line arrowing through the runic circles. Hiashi and Neji, facing each other, were like mirror images, one a younger reflection, the other a future vision; Hanabi a female counterpoint to the two. The blood of the Hyuuga clan, a mage-bloodline that had existed for over a thousand years, coursed strongly through all three of the people in the room.

But only Hanabi would be able to use it to its fullest potential. Neji kept his face still as the familiar bitterness passed through him, but he could not keep his mind from traveling down the familiar paths.

His father and Hiashi had been twins - identical twins, their births separated by a matter of minutes. And in those minutes, their destinies had been decided: Hiashi was named heir to the clan leadership, heir to centuries of history and tradition and ambition. Hizashi had been forever left in his twin's shadow, his forehead marked with ancient runes once designed for prisoners so that his brother could call on his power when needed - and strike him down if he ever proved a danger.

In the end, it had not been the caged bird seal that had killed him, but a bolt of mage-force hurled by an enemy of the Hyuugas - he had deliberately thrown himself in its path, taking the death that had been meant for his brother. As he lay dying, he had begged his brother, for this last and most important time, to wield Hizashi's powers as if they had been Hiashi's own.

Lifeblood, offered in willing sacrifice, was one of the most powerful catalysts known to magery. When it was kinsblood - the blood of a twin, one who had once been the same being as you, in the womb - the power that could be invoked was mind-boggling.

Hiashi had taken what his brother had offered, and forged it into a killing strike that had wiped out the whole of the Kumo clan, a rival bloodline that had been Clan Hyuuga's enemies for almost as long as either had existed. He had erased any and all trace of them from the face of the earth, in an act of incredible magical strength that was still spoken of in whispers, and had gained Clan Hyuuga a much needed breathing space from attacks - one that was especially precious now, on the eve of the War.

Hiashi had admitted to Neji that he did not reckon it a fair trade.

Neji did not hate Hiashi. He had seen the tears in his uncle's eyes - eyes like his, eyes like his father's - when he had carried his twin brother's body back to the estate. He had seen how tenderly Hiashi had laid Hizashi down to rest on the marble bier, how carefully he had summoned the silver flames that had burned his father's body to ashes - the 'burning death' reserved only for the Main House Hyuugas. And he had been looked after by his uncle in his father's place, taught the spells and skills usually reserved for the Main House, had seen the real pride in Hiashi's face whenever Neji had accomplished some feat of magery.

But that did not take away the seal carved into his forehead, or the fact that it was Hanabi kneeling in the runic circle, Hanabi who would be Clan Hyuuga's representative in the War of the Grail.

* * *

_"Father," Neji asks, his six-year-old voice high-pitched with wonder and youth, both. "Father, what's a holy grail?"_

_Hizashi freezes for the barest fraction of a second, and turns to his only son with a gentle smile before Neji can notice the pause. "Neji, where did you hear that?"_

_Neji fidgets a little, but at his father's expectant look sighs and tells all. He has never been able to lie to his father. "Uncle Hiashi left a book on the table when I called him to talk to you. He was reading it to Hinata. He told her that if she didn't learn it well she wouldn't be ready in time. Ready in time for what, father? I saw a picture of a cup. Was that the grail? Was it? It was pretty. But why was Hinata so scared, it's just a cup," Neji babbles happily, curiously._

_Hizashi mourns a little for his brother, and the heir on whom his brother had placed such hopes. 'Sometimes I think it is you who was more trapped by the birth-order than I, Hiashi,' he thinks sadly, looking at his little son, who is the fruit of love between him and his wife; something that cannot truly be said for Hinata, who had been the product of a careful breeding program, matching mage bloodline to mage bloodline with little care for the individuals caught in its well-planned web._

_"The Holy Grail is not a cup, Neji," he tells his son, seating himself. Neji, recognizing with glee the signs of a storytelling, runs to his father and clambers into his lap._

_"The Holy Grail is...it is a thing of great magic," Hizashi says, translating the well-known truths into words his six-year-old could understand. "It once held the blood of a god, which He offered freely in the great sacrifice. And blood-sacrifice is strong, Neji-kun, remember that."_

_Neji's eyes are wide, as they always are whenever his father imparts some great truth upon him. Gazing into those wide silver eyes, Hizashi feels a sudden rush of affection for his boy, and hugs him tightly. Neji hugs back for a moment before squirming and demanding to be told more of this holy grail._

_"That power still rests in the Grail. It is so strong that if you have it, you can wish for anything and the Grail will grant it to you. But you can only get it if you are strong, and if you are wise, and if the times are right. The Grail, Neji, appears on earth only once every five hundred years, and then the mage-clans have a...a competition between them to see who will get to hold the Grail."_

_Neji's eyes widen even more in comprehension. "We're going to be in the competition, aren't we, father?"_

_"Yes, my clever little boy," Hizashi whispers, burying his face into the sweet, still slightly babyish scent of Neji's hair. "It is what we have waited for, for five hundred years. Clan Hyuuga will war for the Grail."_

* * * 

A sudden glitter of light off well-maintained metal caught Neji’s eyes, distracted him from his thoughts. His eyes fell on the pair of matched swords held in his cousin’s hands, the dark blade in her left and the white blade on her right, the wrists crossed so the tips fell on opposite sides.

The legendary falchions Gan Jiang and Mo Ye – called Kansho and Bakuya here in Japan - forged at the command of an emperor, tempered by lifesblood spilt willingly. Again, the great sacrifice – Neji made passing note of it, before focusing again on the sheer beauty of the weapons. He closed his eyes, opened them again to reveal the Byakugan in full power; to the mage-sight his silver eyes granted him, the swords were ablaze with magic.

This was the greatest working a mage could shape: the summoning of an _Eirei_. _Eirei_ , the epic spirits, the souls of the greatest heroes and legends who had ever trod the earth, would be returned to the mortal plane – refined, perfected, in fuller bloom of their powers than had ever been possible in life. 

To have such power bound to one was a heady thought; but it was also a risk, because the _Eirei_ could refuse to contract with their Summoner – and, all their magic expended and unable to return to the mage without a contract to complete the working, the mage usually perished, drained, powerless, wasted. There were two documented cases of mages who had survived unsuccessful attempts: one lived out the rest of his days as a gibbering madman; the other had not waited that long and killed himself. Both of them had been the hopes of their clans, more powerful by far than any other member or indeed any other mage alive in their time; their losses had killed their clans’ dreams and ambitions.

All mages knew what they risked by attempting to Summon.

Only seven _Eirei_ could be summoned in each War, one for each class of hero: Archer, Saber, Berserker, Rider, Lancer, Assassin and Caster. To summon any one _Eirei_ , some sort of artifact was necessary to establish a connection between Summoner and _Eirei_.

Clan Hyuuga had decided, after studying the annals of previous Wars and from their own experiences as warriors, that the strongest class was the Saber. Accordingly, they had then set out to obtain the most powerful swords they could find to use in the Summoning.

It had not been easy; other clans had come to the same conclusion. The twin swords had been hidden in the tomb of the Wu Emperor for thousands of years, protected by layers of traps both mundane and sorcerous; it had taken three generations of study and the mental breakdowns of several brilliant Hyuuga scholars in order to discover where they lay; and then the deaths of more than a dozen of the clan’s best warriors and battle-mages to win through to the burial chamber where Kansho and Bakuya rested in state.

As if that had not been enough, once the other clans had learned their secret, Clan Hyuuga had been subject to frequent attacks from other clans trying to steal the swords; it had been in one such attempted raid that Hizashi had been killed.

Now the swords that his father had given his life for would be used to Summon a champion for Clan Hyuuga – a champion who would be bound to Hanabi, a mage young enough so that her magic was still mostly unfixed, not yet attuned to any single branch of magic, able to bond fully to the _Eirei’_ s own magic.

Neji gritted his teeth as the Summoning neared completion, the magic in the room beginning to fluctuate like the winds before a storm, or flames in a bonfire. Stubbornly he kept his Byakugan active, training his eyes on where the swords and Hanabi, surrounded by rings of light, shone with pure magic. He tensed, noticing vaguely that his uncle was similarly stiffened, anticipation and hope and excitement rising like a building tide within him.

Hanabi was standing now, her hair and clothes whipped about by magic-called winds, her face alight with excitement. She cut each palm open with the blades she held, holding her hands out palm-down to let the blood fall to the pentagram. The blades floated serenely beside her as the pentagram blazed with bloody light, so much so that finally Neji had to cover his eyes.

“O guardians of the balance, o spirits who wait between the worlds: hear me! O deathless ones, o breakers of chains: heed me!” Hanabi cried, her young voice sounding like the high clear note of a hunter’s horn. It echoed with power, rebounding from the walls, in this chamber that did not usually echo.

The door creaked open slowly. Neji whipped his head around at the sound, aghast; Hanabi, too caught up in the spell to notice the outside world, did not even notice.

“O watchers of the final fire _,_ o bearers of shadow and bearers of light: _come to me!”_

**Author's Note:**

> I pick and choose which bits of Fate/Stay Night canon I want to put in, so it doesn't exactly match up to the series. TBH I don't know much beyond the first and maybe some of the second series.


End file.
